SAT Admission Scandal: Student’s Perspective

As a junior, I know the struggles of standardized testing better than most. I’ve taken AP exams, the SAT, ACT, PSAT, you name it. I, along with everyone else in my grade, have dedicated countless hours to studying for these tests. In fact, I just took my second SAT on March 9. On test day, I showed up to my testing center and waited in line with 300 other kids. It was the busiest test day of the year. Once I got into the testing room, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. After the long testing session, I knew I could have done better, but I tried my hardest. It was physically and mentally exhausting and I had no motivation to do anything for the rest of the day. Flash forward to today, March 22, and I am anxiously awaiting the release of my score to see if my hard work paid off.

When the news of the SAT and college admission scandals broke, I was furious. How could people willingly participate in something like this when kids all over the country work so hard to do well on the test. It’s so difficult to get into college these days. When celebrities bribe admission officials to get their kids into prestigious schools, such as USC, it takes spots away from students who deserved to be there based on merit. In fact, I’m glad the celebrities got caught because the majority of their kids didn’t deserve to be at the universities they were attending. For example, Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade was admitted into USC. She was a Sephora brand partner, model, Youtuber, and social media influencer. Not to discredit any of her achievements, but it is unlikely she could have gotten accepted into USC on her own. Additionally, she posted a Q&A video on her Youtube channel and when asked about college, she claimed she “didn’t really care about school”. It’s beyond me how she could be so ungrateful when there are people who can’t even dream of attending USC for academic and financial reasons. The entire situation just makes me sick.

I hope everyone learns a valuable lesson from the scandal. The fact of the matter is, you can only get somewhere in life through hard work and you WILL get caught otherwise. Cheating on tests or copying assignments just isn’t worth it because you can lose everything you’ve worked so hard for. I promise all the effort will pay off.